China's cover up of Covid-19 is undeniable
I've actually written this two weeks ago, when a report was published by the news agency AP, showing how the Chinese government did not disclose vital information on the Covid-19 virus. I did not publish it at the time, but now I decide to do so with some updates at the bottom.
Two weeks ago, an AP report has stated, based on leaked documents, that China's leaders knew about the dangers of the Covid-19 as well as the potential of human-to-human transmissions on January 14th but did not notify the public until six days later on January 20th. During this six day period, people were moving around and about, to the point that on January 18th, there was a mass gathering for potluck involving around 40,000 held in Wuhan and approved by the local government. During this time, even the World Health Organization (WHO) also did not confirm any human-to-human transmission as well, as it seemed that they were too trusting of the Chinese government.
Two weeks ago, an AP report has stated, based on leaked documents, that China's leaders knew about the dangers of the Covid-19 as well as the potential of human-to-human transmissions on January 14th but did not notify the public until six days later on January 20th. During this six day period, people were moving around and about, to the point that on January 18th, there was a mass gathering for potluck involving around 40,000 held in Wuhan and approved by the local government. During this time, even the World Health Organization (WHO) also did not confirm any human-to-human transmission as well, as it seemed that they were too trusting of the Chinese government.
According to the report, during the six day period that the Chinese government were hiding vital information, around 3,000 people became infected. It was only on 20th of January that President Xi warned the public on the possible pandemic that is breaking out in the country.
Below is a screen grab from an interview done with Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang back in January, who admitted that many vital information were not disclosed and shared due to strict bureaucracy as well as fear to share openly without government approval. And it seems that the government intentionally did not give approval for any information regarding the scale of the virus to be disclosed.
Accusations on China about their lack of transparency during the early days of Covid-19 is just a natural reaction by the public because it could have saved countless lives as well as reduce the scale of the pandemic that we see today, that affects the whole world. There are also accusations on China about covering up another important piece of information, which is the origin of the virus. Although there are still no concrete evidence stating that it leaked from the Wuhan lab, there are many persuasive reasons to do so.
Wuhan lab and the theory of "Leaked virus".
There are two labs in Wuhan that deals with viruses, more specifically the Coronavirus. The most important one is the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the other is the Centre for Preventive Disease and Control. The Wuhan Institute in particular has for many years been studying bat coronaviruses and about their being transmissible to humans. The lead researcher is Shi Zhengli or otherwise known as "bat woman" due to her avid research in bat coronaviruses.
Shi Zhengli, China's "batwoman" collecting bat samples.
The theory that is gaining traction since early this year, and even Donald Trump alluded to it in March, is that the virus accidentally leaked out of the lab and eventually infected the people of Wuhan. Indeed this is a very plausible scenario. Shi Zhengli herself, when she heard about that there was an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan on December 30th, asked herself "could they have come from our lab?", clearly, it is not strange for anyone to be asking this same question.
It is entirely possible that one of the researchers at the Wuhan Institute got infected (patient 0) with the virus that they were studying in bats, and walked out of the Institute either knowing or not knowing that he or she was infected because there won't be any symptoms earlier, and started to infect the people of Wuhan.
There's a possibility also that Patient 0 died due to the virus, and the people that was responsible for her cremation got infected due to them not knowing anything about the virus. You might have realized that there are talks on the internet of Patient 0 being a student from the Wuhan institute of Virology, named Huang Yanling, who is missing and there are rumors of her being dead from the virus.
The institute has denied the rumors of her being Patient 0 even though they admit that she was a student there, but until today, Huang Yanli has never appeared either in public, or appeared online to deny the rumors. She has in fact, disappeared. The institute has a page that shows all their former students and bio, but the institute has removed her picture or any information about her from their website. You can see the story here.These sort of actions by the institute has only fueled more speculations.
However, it seems that the Wuhan institute has since removed the webpage altogether now, and you can no longer access it. Previously I managed to open the page to see it for myself but now no more. Are they trying to hide something?
The institute is a subsidiary of China's National Academy of Science, a governmental body. It is fully expected that if such an accident did indeed happen in the lab, the government would do all they could to cover up the story. To quell this theory, the government of China should call Huang Yanling and bring her to public attention, and it is something expected of the Chinese government to do, seeing as they are so careful of protecting their image. But until now they have not done that, so what actually happened to Huang Yanling?
Theories that the virus came from USA
I'm not denying, there are possibilities that this could be the case, especially with the recent finding by researchers from Cambridge University that the virus has three strains, A, B and C, and the original strain was A and the other two mutated from it. The surprising find is that the original strain, Type A, is found mostly in the sample of patients from America and Australia, while only a minority is from Wuhan, which has a majority of Type B cases, although there are also Type A cases in Wuhan, as well as other parts of China.
However, before you jump on the conclusion that this study proves the virus came from the USA, bear in mind that the lead researcher himself, Peter Forsterm, did not say that the virus came from the US, but said although he believed the virus did not originate in Wuhan, he believed it probably originated in Southern China.
The paper also only has 160 samples from patients, which is quite lacking to draw conclusions with certainty.
Australia's recent call for an independent investigation
Recently there is a spat between Australia and China over Australia's call for an independent inquiry be done on the origins of the Covid-19 virus. Surprisingly, China has reacted by attacking Australia including issuing 'veiled threats' by stating the possibility of Chinese citizens boycotting Australia if the latter continues with this call.
This reaction by China is telling. Why are they so defensive? The Communist country should understand that the virus has affected global lives and economy, and it is of the interest of the global community that we know what the origin of the virus is so as to learn and prevent any future outbreaks from the data compiled. An independent investigation is the only way that we can find out the answer. We cannot rely solely on any Chinese Communist Party investigation as it would clearly not be independent and the results could be biased towards protecting the image of the state, especially if negligence were involved. The investigative panel should be comprised of several parties from the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as representatives of various countries, including China, to come up with a comprehensive report.
So long as the Chinese continues to be defensive, dissatisfaction and suspicions against the ruling government will only mount.
It is entirely possible that one of the researchers at the Wuhan Institute got infected (patient 0) with the virus that they were studying in bats, and walked out of the Institute either knowing or not knowing that he or she was infected because there won't be any symptoms earlier, and started to infect the people of Wuhan.
There's a possibility also that Patient 0 died due to the virus, and the people that was responsible for her cremation got infected due to them not knowing anything about the virus. You might have realized that there are talks on the internet of Patient 0 being a student from the Wuhan institute of Virology, named Huang Yanling, who is missing and there are rumors of her being dead from the virus.
The institute has denied the rumors of her being Patient 0 even though they admit that she was a student there, but until today, Huang Yanli has never appeared either in public, or appeared online to deny the rumors. She has in fact, disappeared. The institute has a page that shows all their former students and bio, but the institute has removed her picture or any information about her from their website. You can see the story here.These sort of actions by the institute has only fueled more speculations.
Huang Yanling's (黄燕玲) picture and bio is absent
However, it seems that the Wuhan institute has since removed the webpage altogether now, and you can no longer access it. Previously I managed to open the page to see it for myself but now no more. Are they trying to hide something?
The institute is a subsidiary of China's National Academy of Science, a governmental body. It is fully expected that if such an accident did indeed happen in the lab, the government would do all they could to cover up the story. To quell this theory, the government of China should call Huang Yanling and bring her to public attention, and it is something expected of the Chinese government to do, seeing as they are so careful of protecting their image. But until now they have not done that, so what actually happened to Huang Yanling?
Theories that the virus came from USA
I'm not denying, there are possibilities that this could be the case, especially with the recent finding by researchers from Cambridge University that the virus has three strains, A, B and C, and the original strain was A and the other two mutated from it. The surprising find is that the original strain, Type A, is found mostly in the sample of patients from America and Australia, while only a minority is from Wuhan, which has a majority of Type B cases, although there are also Type A cases in Wuhan, as well as other parts of China.
However, before you jump on the conclusion that this study proves the virus came from the USA, bear in mind that the lead researcher himself, Peter Forsterm, did not say that the virus came from the US, but said although he believed the virus did not originate in Wuhan, he believed it probably originated in Southern China.
The paper also only has 160 samples from patients, which is quite lacking to draw conclusions with certainty.
Australia's recent call for an independent investigation
Recently there is a spat between Australia and China over Australia's call for an independent inquiry be done on the origins of the Covid-19 virus. Surprisingly, China has reacted by attacking Australia including issuing 'veiled threats' by stating the possibility of Chinese citizens boycotting Australia if the latter continues with this call.
This reaction by China is telling. Why are they so defensive? The Communist country should understand that the virus has affected global lives and economy, and it is of the interest of the global community that we know what the origin of the virus is so as to learn and prevent any future outbreaks from the data compiled. An independent investigation is the only way that we can find out the answer. We cannot rely solely on any Chinese Communist Party investigation as it would clearly not be independent and the results could be biased towards protecting the image of the state, especially if negligence were involved. The investigative panel should be comprised of several parties from the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as representatives of various countries, including China, to come up with a comprehensive report.
So long as the Chinese continues to be defensive, dissatisfaction and suspicions against the ruling government will only mount.
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